


Back Door Man

by chaosmanor



Category: Black Books, Spooks
Genre: Crack, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-07
Updated: 2010-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-05 22:34:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosmanor/pseuds/chaosmanor





	Back Door Man

One of the bad things about running for your life was that it made you careless about where you took shelter. Well, it made Tom careless anyway.

Normally he would never have entered a bookshop so recklessly; there would have been background checks on the owners and staff, a reconnaissance mission after trading hours, to check for surveillance equipment; and back up from Danny.

He usually wouldn't have thrown open a door of a bookshop, dived under a table of Austen and Bronte, rolled behind the biographies so wilfully, but when the Klaatchian Secret Service were attempting to gun Tom down, he was not as cautious as he should be.

The dirt on the floor could have been measured in geological strata, and Tom's highly analytical brain registered that the bees embedded in the dirt were an extinct Andean species reputed to hold the secret to curing cancer. His analytical brain also told him that the sound of gunfire was receding, as was the whirring of the APC, and that a person with appalling tinea was standing with his boots mere inches from Tom's nose.

Tom retched discreetly and stood up, all in one supple movement, and found a madman grinning at him.

"Good morning, sir," the lunatic with the wild hair and technicolour vomit shirt said. "Could I interest you in a biography of Winston Churchill? This week's special offer is a paired set of biographies of Rasputin and Helen Keller, with matching bindings."

Tom took a step back and scanned the shop. Grace Pritchard, of 17 Richmond Gardens, was browsing the men's erotica section; Theodore Stanchion, of no fixed address while visiting Britain on a forged passport, was reading The Anarchist's Cookbook; and Josepha Sheepsbottom, from an obscure town in Wales, was demonstrating she lived beyond her means by surreptitiously licking each page of the cookbook she was holding.

Tom isolated each of the sounds, the madman's gurgling gut, the nasal drone from Stanchion, each of their body sounds, and his own, and it left one set of noises unaccounted for.

Someone was slurping.

Tom loosened his gun in its groin holster, and slipped like a ghost past the madman, who was still babbling on about Helen Keller, and peered over the disaster area of a desk where the till mouldered.

There was a man there, on all fours, licking the floor, and as Tom watched, the man rose to his knees, waving an empty bottle in one hand, and called out, "Got it all, Manny," in a drunken Irish slur that went straight from Tom's ears, through the memory processor embedded in his skull, then headed south, making him wish he'd used an armpit holster that day, since there was the imminent danger of his weapon going off prematurely.

Bernard stood up, dishevelled and inebriated, and rummaged through the debris on the desk, found an unopened bottle of wine, and pulled the cork out with his teeth and spat it at Tom.

"Manny!" he shouted, and the madman dashed over. "Arrr… customer… books…"

Manny, the madman, bobbed around so that his hair flopped wildly, and said, "May I interest you in a book, sir? We have the complete set of Trollope, leather bound, all 72 volumes…"

"Shut up!" Tom and Bernard said in unison.

"I know you, don't I?" Bernard said, and he gesticulated wildly with the bottle, slopping red wine over Tom.

"You do," Tom said, and he leant forward over the desk so he could whisper. "My favourite IRA informant."

'Get close to Bernard Black,' Harry had said the year before. 'Pump him.' Tom had pumped Bernard, thoroughly, but possibly not in the manner Harry had meant, and then Bernard had pumped him, and it had been so good that they'd kept doing it. In between pumpings, Bernard had drunk mugs of red wine and Guinness mixed together, and Tom had discreetly emptied his coffee mug of the evil brew onto Bernard's bedroom floor. Bernard had talked too. Bernard Knew Things, he was in touch with alien life forms, some of which had crawled around between Tom's knees under the sheets. He was in touch with his inner child. He knew about drug shipments, phases of the moon, illegal betting, and planned terrorist actions, often without being aware that he knew.

And he knew how to curl his finger and make Tom scream.

Recognition, and lucidity, rushed across Bernard's face, and he still had the skin of a choir boy. Tom hoped he'd give it back soon.

There was a scramble, and stuff broke underneath Bernard's knees as he clambered across the desk and began to lick the split wine off Tom's shirt, all while Manny gaped.

Grace Pritchard walked across and thrust _A Guide to Better Anal Sex_ at Manny, and Tom made encouraging noises and gripped on to Bernard's ears to direct him across to his nipple.

"Is this any good?" Grace Pritchard asked, and Manny nodded. "I want to buy it," she said, and Manny took the book from her and hit Bernard with it.

"Bernard," he said. "Bernard. Bernard. Bernard. Bernard. Bernard."

"Arrr…" Bernard said. "Fucking… arrr," and Tom was very glad he had a layer of Kevlar between his nipple and Bernard's razor sharp teeth.

Tom was incisive. Tom was a man of action. Tom picked Bernard up and carried him across to the crumb-encrusted couch and dropped him on it, then threw himself on top of Bernard.

There was biting, there was scrabbling, something was missing, so Tom turned himself around so they were both facing the same way. Then there were ashtray kisses, and the rending of clothing, and Bernard's fingers curled around Tom's gun.

"Glockman," Bernard said.

Tom reached between them and moved Bernard's hand.

"Barrett .50calibreman," Bernard said, and Tom's weapon went off loudly.

Bernard was surprisingly strong for a man who lived entirely on alcohol and pork cracklings, rolling them both over so that Tom peered up into the curious watching faces of Manny and Grace Pritchard, and then Bernard curled his finger and Tom screamed.

"Is that in this book?" Grace Pritchard asked Manny, and he nodded.

Bernard was wonderful, Bernard was skilful, Bernard was crunchy. Oh no, wait… That was the couch upholstery.

Bernard sagged down on to Tom, and Tom threaded his fingers into Bernard's lank hair and picked stuff out of it.

"What's your name again?" Bernard asked.

"Tom," Tom said contentedly, and the distant sound of gun fire roused him from his dazed post-orgasmic stupor. "Do you have a back door?" he asked hopefully.


End file.
